Ten Things to do Before I Die
by Wordsworth 13
Summary: Rosette, Chrono and Azmaria have been sent to England to conduct some exorcisms, and culture shock ensues. Meanwhile Rosette finds Chrono's list of '1o things to do before I die' and decides to make sure he does everything on it.
1. All Abroad

**Ten Things to Do Before I Die**

By: Wordsworth 13

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrono Crusade.

Chronology: After Chapter 18 in the manga timeline.

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Chapter 1: All Abroad

Sister Kate read over the letter again. Surely not; the New York division was understaffed as it was, and yet these people were asking for assistance. _'Hold on a second'_ she thought _'I could send her; she _is_ in the Militia after all! It would keep her out of my hair for a couple of weeks.'_ Sister Kate put her teacup down and slowly emerged from the door greeted by a daydreaming Azmaria who was _supposed_ to be sweeping the floor. "Azmaria." She said. The white haired girl was slightly startled and practically yelled

"Oh, Sister Kate. Um, I was just uh…" She trailed off, trying to think of an excuse. Peanuts in the eye wouldn't cut it this time. "Azmaria, could you please fetch Sister Rosette for me please." She chimed.

"Oh, yes Sister Kate." Azmaria stuttered, scampering off to track down the single most dangerous person in New York.

Chrono looked down at the small leather, ring bound book, with his name on, inscribed in gold letters. He looked up at Elder questioningly. "You can use that any way you want." The old man who, as usual was wearing goggles for no apparent reason, told the boy in the red coat. "I would suggest keeping names and addresses in there, I know some girls are into younger boys, eh?" He leaned in to nudge Chrono suggestively but doing that to someone who isn't there can prove to be difficult. "Chrono?" He asked the empty room. He suddenly began to smile. "He must have gone to pick up some chicks!" He yelled proudly. Chrono had made his hasty exit, now breathing heavily ducked outside the door, knowing that Elder brought up women in just about every conversation that wasn't about weapons, and some that were. God only knows how he'd act if he ever met Satella.

The boy could easily be told apart from humans due to his fangs, red eyes, slit pupils, purple hair and pointed ears. But, as it was with humanity, no-one noticed. Yes, the human race is comprised mainly of morons, but what are you going to do? He adjusted the jacket and sat down on a bench next to the fountain, which he had walked over to so he wouldn't be in a ten foot radius of the biggest pervert on the planet. There was a small pencil in the rings that held the pages of his personalised note-book that he plucked out and examined. It was pretty uninteresting.

As his mind always did when he hadn't anything else to think about, it turned to one particular subject and he subconsciously wrote a single word on the first page of the book. He looked down at it, realising what he had done. Oh, well, it couldn't hurt to experiment could it? He began moving the pencil across the page with more skill than he knew he had. Well, now he had something to do for the nest half hour.

_'Oh, God! What did I do now?' _Rosette wondered, following Azmaria back to Sister Kate's office _'I didn't _completely_ destroy the car this time!'_ Azmaria stopped and looked towards the door to Sister Kate's office. The blonde exorcist trotted into the office as the twelve year old apostle picked up her broom and resumed sweeping.

Stood before the lacquered brown desk, Rosette sighed and asked "What did I break?" Sister Kate laughed, as if she was forcing herself to find a bad joke funny.

"Nothing, why would you think I called you for that?" She laughed, still creepily

"'Cause that's always the reason you call me here." Rosette said, somewhat confused at the fact that Sister Kate wasn't yelling at her for accidentally sinking Hawaii or something like that. She was in a strangely good mood. "No, no, I've got an assignment for you." Rosette tilted her head to her left. "You see, today I got a letter from the London division of the Magdalan Order, asking for some help with a few exorcisms they're having trouble with."

"Wait, don't they have Militia in England?"

"All their Militia were killed by the demons _you're_ going to be fighting."

"What! You're sending me to England, but I'm going to San Francisco to look for Joshua!"

"Well, actually, you're train tickets are for next month, and you'll be back before then. Don't worry; hotels and transport have already been sorted out." Kate lied, tearing up a small piece of paper behind her back. This was probably why she was being so cheery. It was pretty unusual for anyone who dressed in all white, black and grey to be cheery. It wasn't as if Rosette actually had a choice. "Fine." She breathed.

Chrono was, as usual, smiling in quiet contemplation, enjoying the sun, as he always did when Rosette wasn't dragging him from task to task. "Chrono!" Boomed a familiar voice, coupled with a hand that enveloped his wrist and wrenched him forcefully upright "Pack your bags; we're going on a trip!"

"A trip?" The violet haired demon enquired to the hyperactive nun.

"Yes, to England."

"England?"

"Yep, we're setting sale tomorrow. Azzy's comin' too!" Rosette was being awfully happy. Chrono assumed this was for his sake, as he knew anything that would delay her search for her brother was not something easily welcomed. Chrono decided, just this once, to be daring and inquire into her joyous mood. "I would've thought you'd object to this. Weren't we about to search for Joshua?"

"Nah," the exorcist chimed "turns out our train's not for another month, plus, I wanna see the world in the time I've got." As usual Chrono felt a pang of guilt as he heard the words 'in the time I've got' and glanced forlornly down at the pocket watch that symbolised the life draining contract he held with Rosette.

Rosette noticed his gaze and put a hand over the watch. "I told you to stop worrying about that. This is my choice, remember? Everyone has to die sooner or later, I'm sorry I brought it up okay." She rested a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. He nodded "Yeah, okay." He turned around and began to saunter towards the Elder's workshop. "Where are you going?" asked after him

"To pack." He replied simply, his gentle smile returning.

Chrono folded another shirt and placed it in the small leather case Elder had leant him. Once the strange old man had heard he was going on a trip with Rosette he'd started making comments. Chrono told him hotel rooms weren't supposed to be used for that and that he had a sick mind. Besides it wasn't like Chrono was even attracted to the girl, at least, he told himself he wasn't. He sighed and glanced at his notebook, which had been carelessly tossed onto the bedside table. Then his eyes widened slightly as an idea hit him. "_Everyone _has to die sooner or later…" He murmured to himself, quoting Rosette's words. It was actually quite a good idea, a better use for his notebook than Elder had suggested at least. Chrono went about folding a couple more shirts and then set to work on his latest idea. Certainly, the book had about eighty leafs of paper, but now he had a use for about eleven, that was a pretty good dent right?

"Oh, Rosette?" Elder said in a questioning tone as the door to his study opened. "If I'd known you were coming I'd have hidden under a table!" He cried, grinning like a moron, rather than the lecherous genius he was. "Whatever," Rosette sighed "I need some supplies for a trip."

"Okay, what do you need?" The old man asked

"Four Gospels, eighty Sacred Spirits and a Cross Barrier, I guess,"

"Okie dokie." Elder said, beginning to gather up some silver bullets and crucifixes for a Principatus Barrier, and once she had gotten her things she left to tell Azmaria of their little excursion, and on the way to the often drably garbed girl's dormitory she began to wonder what England was actually like. She'd never been before, all she knew about it was they ate 'fish and chips'. Why anyone would want to eat fish with fried slices of wafer thin potato she couldn't figure out. She came to Azmaria's room and knocked, preparing to give her the same explanation she gave Chrono, but without the jerking around and general roughing up that the purple haired 'twelve' year old was treated to.

A day had passed. It was eight o'clock in the morning and rosette was barely awake. Chrono, as usual, was being treated like a pack mule, carrying the ammo case, as well as his, Rosette's and, though she insisted she carried it herself Rosette insisted Chrono carried it, Azmaria's suitcases. But he was used to this. Sister Kate and Father Remington had come to see them off, the second part of the pair Rosette was, as usual, swooning over. Sister Kate pulled a folded piece of paper from practically nowhere, if she had any pockets they were hard to find. She unfolded it into what appeared to be a map of two very small, lumpy islands. It had UNITED KINGDOM printed at the top in one of those fonts that's made up of block capitals with really thin lines that you can hardly read. "You will be travelling on a round trip around Britain, sailing to Ireland where you will drive to Dublin, then sailing to Edinburgh, and then taking a train down to London, driving to Cardiff and sailing back to Dublin to be picked up by the captain and sailed back here. Any questions?" Rosette shook her head.

A few metres away, two rather nondescript men in overalls were hauling a number of wooden crates off of a fishing ship. The man whose hair and eyes were slightly darker than those of the other's hauled one up and gasped. "Jesus! This one's a little heavier than the rest." The other man shrugged.

"Maybe there's a swordfish in it." He said uncertainly. The first man let out a huge gasp as he let the crate down

"Can you give me a hand with this, Ted."

"Roger that, Roger." Ted laughed, saluting.

"Don't do that," Roger said sharply, glaring daggers at his co-worker. The two heaved the box up and began uncoordinatedly staggering off the boat, Ted several times nearly tripping. Eventually an expression of strain began to make its way across Roger's face. Noticing this Ted chuckled "Not much farther, come on." However his words of 'encouragement' made no difference, as Roger then dropped his end of the pinewood box, narrowly missing his toes. The box popped off, and Roger was greeted by a huge, opening eye with a yellow iris.

Rosette's eyes widened as she heard a blood curdling scream and a terrifying roar, and she turned as quick as lightning towards the source of the noise. "Let's go!" She yelled at her two partners before running off before they could even acknowledge she'd said anything to them. Trying, failing but trying, to keep up with Rosette Chrono and Azmaria jogged sweating buckets, they turned a corner she'd passed about half a minute ago and were surprised to see that she'd stopped, but even more surprised at why she'd stopped. Before them was stood a sky blue fish with muscular human arms and legs, catfish whiskers, and a posture like an ape. "What is that?" Azmaria gasped.

"My guess would be that's where legends about mermaids and Atlantis come from. I'd say it qualifies to be the King of the Sea!" During the exchange of words rosette had loaded some Sacred Spirits into her Government and was poised to fire. The fish creature leapt to one side, well before her finger was even on the trigger to reveal a mangled, half eaten corpse and a cowering fish porter named Ted. Seeing this the exorcist's eyes narrowed and she glared at the demon. It was game time.

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Yay! Chapter 1 done, and I've left it at a cliff hanger that should have you expecting some quick violence in the next chapter. By the way, a lot of jokes in this will be the way English English and American English get some of their words mixed up and the misunderstandings this can create. But Rosette's right. Who _would_ want to eat fish and crisps, really. 


	2. Thou Shall Have A Little Fishy

**Ten Things to do Before I Die**

By: Wordsworth 13

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrono Crusade

Chronology: After Chapter 19 in the Manga timeline

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Chapter 2: Thou Shall Have A Little Fishy

Rosette stood following the fish beast's every move with her gun, enraged at its actions. She hadn't known the person it had killed. In fact the corpse was so mangled she wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman, blood obscuring the clothes, torn sinews lying limp on the floor, half the face literally eaten off the skull.

"Rosette, I'll bet that creature's about as smart as a pretzel, but it looks pretty strong too." Chrono warned. Rosette nodded and continued to keep her eyes peeled for an opportune moment. Her eyes narrowed and she pulled the trigger. The demon leapt out of the line of fire with surprising agility, leaving the Sacred Spirit to hit the ground in a crucifix shaped spark. Rosette turned to the monster's new perch and wildly fired three more bullets at it, thankfully, one of them piercing its arm. The gargantuan fish cake squealed in pain in a strangely un-fish-like voice. Considering the roar they'd heard chasing it, Chrono had kind of been expecting it to be some king of huge lizard, like a dinosaur. "Azmaria, the cross barrier!" Rosette cried, turning her head.

Azmaria's eyes turned down to the four metal crucifixes in her hands. "Oh," she murmured to herself, barely remembering she had a part to play in the exorcisms. She began running towards a convenient place to put the first rod. The port was not an ideal place to be doing Azmaria's job. "Chrono! The weapon!" Rosette yelled, firing another off target bullet. Azmaria was at this point driving the second marker for the Cross Barrier into the ground. "Rosette, we only have four of those we've got to save them for the trip!"

"We don't have time for second thoughts, Chrono! Give me the bullet!" Rosette screamed at the purple haired demon.

"Done…" Azmaria breathed as she slammed the last crucifix into the ground. An azure glow began to rise from the ground in the shape of the holy cross, the creature suddenly ceasing its movements, in a rather uncomfortable position with one arm in the air. "Okay, never mind." Rosette murmured, raising her Government as the beast struggled to move from its spot. "May the lost lambs have peace," the nun began "may the wolves no longer bare their fangs," she continued "and may this demon feel the crushing blow of death!" She finished, pulling the trigger. A bloody wound opened in the creatures chest and it stopped struggling, falling limply to the floor. Rosette lowered the pistol, breathing heavily.

The fight was over. Chrono stepped forward "Wow," he said "nothing broke." Though, he spoke too soon, as after he finished the sentence, a mysterious groaning noise began droning from nearby. The wood of the pier, where the fish demon had fallen, was sagging, and then snapped, taking the rest of the patch of wood with it. Luckily, and unusually, it didn't have anyone standing on it, so only the piscine corpse fell into the water.

Sister Kate and Father Remington had, by this time caught up, just at the right moment to see the pier collapse. As usual, this did not put Sister Kate in a good frame of mind. Her hands were balling into fists, then unclenching again, then going to fists again. Rosette laughed nervously. "Oh look, there's our boat, gotta go! Come on Chrono!" She grabbed Chrono's wrist and dragged him off towards the bulky, military green boat.

Once Rosette had dragged the red coated demon and the young 'angle' aboard the ship she waved and hurriedly said "Bye-bye Sister Kate!" and slammed the door. Sister Kate rested her hand on her forehead and sighed

"Well, at least there gone for a couple of weeks." Her eyes suddenly widened in realisation as she saw the boat floating away, aided by its propulsion system, which was actually quite unusual, especially considering the purple glow, and practically yelled "Wait! Did they just take Azmaria with them?"

"Of course" Father Remington said, showing the unfortunate sister his everlasting smile. "She _is_ Rosette's assistant."

"But there were only supposed to be three people on the trip!"

"Three?" the now befuddled priest asked.

"Elder! What are you doing here?" Rosette screamed as she faced the grinning old man whom she had come upon whilst entering the ship. "Sister Kate put me in charge of getting you from place to place." The elderly letch replied, smiling inanely. He brushed some dust off his lab coat and continued "After all, do you know how long it would take to just go to Britain on a normal boat? But with my new demon powered engine, it will only take two days!"

"Demon powered?" Chrono cried "Do you remember what happened the last time you invented something _demon powered_?" His mind turning to the bullets the crazy old man had invented about a month ago. That day he had almost broken his seal on his own.

"Don't worry; I've removed that minor fault." Elder announced proudly

"_Minor fault_? It nearly destroyed half the convent!" The vertically challenged demon protested. "Whatever, Chrono quit fussing," Rosette sighed "as long as it doesn't try to kill us a demon powered engine is fine."

"But that's the problem!" Chrono yelled "It probably _is_ going to try to kill us!"

After quite a lot of grating, high pitched voices, at one point, Elder trying to lift up Rosette's skirt, everyone had retired to their quarters. Rosette wondered why there were only three rooms on the boat, but hers had a bunk bed, and she didn't mind sharing with Azmaria. Chrono meanwhile, was sprawled across his bed, merely thinking about the facts of life that seemed to elude everyone, such as; how do they make the little holes in buttons, and why the hell was Humpty Dumpty on the wall in the first place. Hardly seems an ideal place for an egg. His mind wandered about five minutes into the past when he and Rosette were still half way through their scuff over Elder's 'alternative' energy source and she had leaned in so close their foreheads were nearly touching. The only way his heart could have been beating any faster at the time would be if she hadn't been giving him a death glare. His eyes widened with an ingenious idea, which he quickly went to scrawling onto the next page in his notebook. He also began a small doodle, but stopped halfway through and began adapting what he had already drawn to a different picture.

He heard a quiet knock on his door and put the book down. "Hello?" Rosette opened the door a crack. "They're serving dinner on the next deck down." She told him. Chrono muttered a noncommittal response and dragged himself up from the stiff mattress. He wandered through the door telling Rosette he'd see her at the table and wandered towards the stairs. Rosette was about to shut the stereotypically boat style door when something she'd never seen before caught her eye. It was a small, reddish brown, ring-bound leather book with the word CHRONO printed on it in thick golden capitol letters. "What's that…" she murmured unintentionally. She turned around and began to close the door again, but, as is usually the case in any tale, curiosity got the better of her. Since it had his name on, and it was in his cabin, she guessed it was his.

She lifted it gently off the bed and slowly opened it. On the first page was her name. Spelt perfectly. Fifteen times. Her name, written in fifteen different fonts all over the page. One looked like Chrono's normal handwriting; another had hearts around it, which made hers jump. Another had a sword through it and was leaking extremely well shaded blood. She was almost afraid to turn to the next page. This one looked like the title page to a book and it read: 'Ten Things to do Before I Die'. Now she just couldn't resist looking at the next page. At the top was written:

#1: Learn to dance. Underneath it was a small stick figure with scruffy hair, an unfathomably long braid and pointed ears appeared to be ball dancing with a nondescript female stick figure. She had tiny ribbons in her hair, Rosette noted, and this was the only unusual or distinguishing thing about it. She turned a page. This one said:

#2: Find a four leaf clover and the gold at the end of the rainbow. This one had the same long haired stick man from before, but it had a four leaved clover tucked in a bandana around his forehead, and was jumping around jubilantly next to a crudely drawn cauldron full on money. Coming out of it was an excellently shaded a rainbow, using different greys as its seven colours. Rosette had to admit, Chrono was good at shading. The next page's task was.

#3: Eat 'haggis' and find out what it's made of. Rosette had heard it was comprised of revolting ingredients, but not exactly which ones. She couldn't believe her friend actually wanted to know what the stuff was made from. Then again, curiosity did kill the cat; she guessed that it disembowelled the demon as well. Underneath this one was a picture of the Chrono stick man reluctantly poking a stylised fork into a black lump. She flipped to the next page. Scribbled in the usual chicken scratch was:

#4: See the Loch Ness Monster. This made Rosette chuckle. Especially when she saw the doodle of the stick Chrono cowering in front of what appeared to be a cartoon plesiosaur. Chrono's art style actually had no consistency, she noted, it went from shading to stickmen to the kind of thing you expect in books for five year olds. She looked onto the next leaf of paper. As usual the writing was messy yet surprisingly legible. This fazed her slightly as she had read somewhere that if you can make out someone's really crappy handwriting the two of you are 'meant to be' but she didn't believe in that stuff. Well, she believed she didn't believe in that stuff anyway. It read;

#5 See the Crown Jewels. Rosette had very little knowledge on what this meant but she was fairly sure it had something to do with the king. Or queen. This was probably because of the fact that the cartoon showed the demon doodle marvelling at a well sketched crown. She also noticed that there was a check box the next to the '#5'. She flipped back to number one and saw that it had a checkbox too. Chrono had thought of everything. She turned to the next page and read the words:

#6: Get one of the English soldiers in the big hats to move. Now Chrono was just getting ridiculous. The picture beneath the writing was of the long haired doodle sticking his tongue out with one eye closed and one eyelid pulled down at a bored looking man in a big hat. The next page said:

#7: Go fishing. '_Not exactly a life changing experience._' She thought, but then it didn't really matter what she thought, this was Chrono's list. There was a picture of a relaxed looking Chrono sat at a pier edge in a funny hat. When she thought about it, she'd never seen Chrono fish, which might explain why he wanted to. She looked at the next page.

#8: Have a conversation with a cat. "What the…?" Rosette whispered to herself. Sure he was a demon but, he couldn't talk to cats could he? Nah, of course not. Besides, who wouldn't want to have a conversation with a cat, they were nicer than a lot of people. There was a picture of stick Chrono sat next to a plump looking cat with twiggy legs, talking to it about; the ocean if she could read the writing in the speech bubble properly, which she doubted she could. The flipped to the next page along. It had writing at the top which read:

#9: Get drunk. Considering they lived in America, the prohibition would make that difficult. She did however like the small doodle of a stumbling Chrono holding a frothy glass mug with red cheeks, arm in arm with the equally intoxicated looking girl from the first page with the ribbons in her hair. Rosette flipped to the next page and read the writing. Blushing, she slammed the book shut. Was what she just read terrifying or a dream come true? At the time she wasn't sure she'd read it right, and left the room, closing the door.

Walking down the corridor towards the lower deck stairs she thought. '_That was Chrono's list of things to do before he dies. I didn't even know he thought about death. So, are all those things the things he really wants to do? Chrono's always so kind and gentle, he deserves to have at least some of those things happen._' Then a devious smile spread over the nun's face. '_But, I can make them all happen, I bet I can._' And thus, Rosette had a side mission while she was in the United Kingdom, but she decided she'd do this secretly, probably just to make it more fun, though also partly so Chrono wouldn't know she'd looked in his notebook. And she set off for the dining room, anticipating the oncoming adventures in the land 'across the pond.'

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Yes! Chappy two is completed. By the way, in the anime Chrono was shown fishing once, but that never happened in the manga, so it fits in with my manga timeline finfic. Please review, I'll like you if you do. (Maybe.) 


	3. There's Somethin' Bubblin' in Dublin

**Ten Things to do Before I Die**

By: Wordsworth 13

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrono Crusade

Chronology: After Chapter 19 in the Manga

Chapter 3: There's Somethin' Bubblin' in Dublin

* * *

Rosette made her way down the stairs to the lower cabin and took a seat next to Chrono at the badly built fold out table, possibly something of Elder's conceiving. "What took you so long?" Chrono inquired

"I stopped to check on Azmaria, she's definitely seasick." The nun replied.

"Oh," Chrono replied, it hadn't really surprised him that much, Azmaria got nervous just about anywhere. "You know, I could probably make her some medicine." The Elder cut in. Rosette glared at him "Forget it! Anything you call medicine is probably an aphrodisiac!"

"Well, not anything." The old perv moped, pushing his fingers together. At this point Chrono saw it appropriate to change the subject. "So, Rosette what kind of demons d'you think we'll be fighting in England."

"And Ireland and Scotland and Wales." She corrected him.

"Okay, so, like I said, what are you expecting?" Rosette thought for a moment and eventually came up with "Meh, it's Britain so I guess it'll be things haunting people's attics."

"Isn't that ghosts."

"Same difference!" The overactive girl retorted, annoyed at having been corrected. Chrono looked over to the other side of the table and noticed something amiss. "Say, where's the Elder?"

Rosette let out a "Wha?" as she looked over and realised that the crazy old coot had indeed vanished. It was at this point she realised something and looked down to see the very man staring up at her frilly underwear, though considering her usual state of dress it wasn't as if everyone wasn't given a liberal view of them anyway.

Sometime after dinner had been finished, whatever it was that the three had been unenthusiastically poking at, none could tell but Rosette got the feeling it was something's spleen, Elder walked nonchalantly into the bridge of the ship. He then asked the captain "So how's the sailing coming?" And the captain, who looked just as clean cut, mildly dirty and shadowy as just about all the people in 1920's New York. The man turned around and said "Oh, we should be there tomo- woah! What happened to your face, there's a huge footprint on it!" Elder merely grinned, treated the captain to a thumbs up and stated "It was worth it."

The next morning Chrono awoke and had back pains from his stiff mattress. Rosette awoke and mentally prepared herself for the repercussions of the upcoming battle, by which I mean the damages bill. Azmaria awoke and was hungry from not having eaten the previous night. And so, each with their own problems, and each without a solution, despite some obvious ones, went back down to the galley for a bowl of crappy cereal with no sugar, one of the worst tortures ever.

As the three sat eating their lumps of wheat that had been squashed into what could have been bricks, a crew member in britches came down and reported; "We'll be arriving at the Irish coast in an hour." And then went straight back up the stairs. Rosette groaned "Aw, a whole hour."

"You have no patience." Chrono scolded her. Elder who was sitting at the table mainly because Rosette was there exclaimed "I like a woman without patience." Two seconds later there was a large bump rising from his head "You like any woman!" Rosette said, scowling at the old man and blowing the smoke off of her recently used fist. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. One hour later the four of them arrived at a port somewhere on the west of Ireland, and went down to the lower deck where they discovered a car waiting for them.

"All right I'm driving!" Rosette announced commandingly, jumping into the front seat behind the wheel. Everyone else just jumped into whichever seat was convenient; however Rosette wasn't exactly comfortable with the Elder precariously perched next to Azmaria in the back. "Okay, we're on our way." Rosette declared, going full pelt on the accelerator. At a dangerous speed the standard Magdalan junk pile rushed forwards off the boat and onto a cobbled road in a port town. "Which way, Chrono!?" the blue garbed teenager demanded. Chrono panicked slightly before stumbling through the glove compartment and fishing out the map. Wondering what the map Sister Kate had given them was doing in the glove compartment of a car they'd never before set foot in, he didn't have time to ponder, he pointed left and shouted "That way!" half a second before the turning came up, which Rosette turned onto at a speed which almost put the vehicle onto two wheels, and as the cobbles stopped the group found themselves on an old country road, which Chrono couldn't tell to be more or less bumpy.

"Are all the roads here like this!?" She whined.

"I dunno, what are you asking us for!?" Chrono snapped back

"Chrono, stop shouting, the last thing we need is you cranky on this trip!"

"Well then quit whining!"

About twenty minutes later when all arguments had been forgotten nothing out of the ordinary happened. Another twenty minutes later there was even more uneventful time. And at twenty minute intervals nothing happened for the rest of the several hours it took them to reach Dublin. Eventually they found an appropriate spot to park their automobile and thus parked it in that particular spot.

"Chrono, where are we even going?" Rosette asked out of the blue. The purple haired demon blinked and looked down at the sheet of mission specs he held in his pale hands. "Uh, some place called the, uh… Rosette I think you should look at this." He handed the over-energised nun the sheet, and when she looked it over Rosette discovered that the name of the place they were headed had been scribbled out with three straight, thick black lines from some sort of pen, above which had been written 'The Blue Kestrel Brothel'. Rosette reached through the window of their vehicle and grabbed a collar, then turned to face its owner. She was greeted by an Elder who was feigning ignorance to any changing of addresses on the mission specs, especially one's pointing to an illegal hotbed of perversion. No that was definitely out of character for him.

"Elder, where were we really going, you old coot!?" The Elder raised his hands defensively. "Some place called the 'King's Head.' An alcohol serving establishment of some sort, I think."

"Chrono, is it on the map?"

"Rosette, this is a map of the country, not of Dublin!" Rosette's eyes widened and she shuddered. "So we're flying blind?" She enquired hopelessly. Chrono thought for a moment before saying "Yeah, I guess." In an equally surrendering tone.

For a few hours the four companions roamed the streets of Dublin, searching high and low for a nondescript public house of nondescript title. They looked, double checked, scanned and played proverbial hide and seek at every square inch of the cobbled streets they found themselves on. Eventually the entire quartet had sore feet, no breath and sweat pouring from their brows like rain from a black cloud over Skegness.

"Rosette, maybe we should stop and ask directions." Chrono finally ventured

"What are you, nuts!? None of us speak Irish, do we!?" Chrono stared at the girl for a few moments before hailing a man with red hair and lamb chop side burns. "Excuse me; you wouldn't happen to know where 'The King's Head' is would you?" The odd hairstyle bearing Irishman turned to Chrono and said "Sure I do, Laddie, 'tis just 'round t'e corner, 'tis," and pointed down the stony path to the party's left.

"Oh, thank you." Chrono said.

After a few seconds Rosette burst out "wait a minute! All this time Irish people spoke English!?" She asked Chrono exceedingly loudly.

"Well yeah, that's why all the street signs were in English." Rosette sighed then asked abruptly in her 'why the hell didn't you tell me you stupid…argh, forget it' voice; "Wait, there were street signs too!?"

Around ten minutes later the troop found themselves in the pub and walking up to the front desk, and addressing a heavy set Caucasian man in a grey tweed waistcoat. He had dark hair and was names Seamus, and was apparently the owner and proprietor of the establishment. "Well this is odd," he said in a far less overestimated accent than the four had expected "the letter I received said there'd only be three of you, ah well, the more the merrier I suppose." Rosette nodded

"Mmm hmm, so what are we going to be exorcising today, a poltergeist, some kind of leprechaun?"

"The second one," Seamus said flatly

"What!? I wasn't serious!" Rosette cried in the shock of someone who tell a ghost story, then meets the ghost.

"Well, it's up in the attic." The greying man said casually whilst lighting his pipe.

Twenty minutes later Chrono, Rosette, and a now recovered from sea and car sickness Azmaria who hadn't spoken a word all day, were preparing all the necessary equipment, whilst the Elder was downstairs doing nobody-knew-what.

"Okay, is everything ready?" Rosette inquired. Chrono and Azmaria nodded. "Okay," she said, turning the old brass doorknob. Azmaria swallowed. The door drifted open, creaking like an old man's bones, to lead to a dusty old attic full of nailed shut crates and furniture with sheets over the top. It was pretty dank. Azmaria breathed in some dust and coughed, everyone turning around. She was wheezing in a fit, until, that is Rosette thumped her on the back. Hard, now she wasn't in an asthma like seizure, she was just winded. Rosette never held back, but if you'd talked to her for ten minutes or so, you'd already understand, "Okay, now that's over, is there a light switch anywhere?" she inquired to no-one in specific. "I think this is one." Chrono murmured as he pulled on a string with what appeared to be a metal fish as its handle. "Oh, an ictus." Chrono said in what could only be called a curious, mildly delighted, at the very least pleased, rather difficult to name, 'oh, wow, you don't see many of these!' sort of voice. There isn't a word for it so that took a while, but at least it filled up some space.

A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling lit up the room, at least partially, and everything started to look slightly newer. They do that in the light.

Chrono paced back and forth looking left and right. "I don't see anything." He uncertainly and cautiously reported to the others.

"So what now?" Rosette asked, once again, no particular sentient being. This time Azmaria answered

"Should we… look for it?"

Rosette looked up "I…guess…" she mumbled bemusedly. This was not what she was used to. It was something for detectives to do, not hyperactive, over-the-top, misbehaving, demon hunting, blonde haired, skimpily dressed American nuns. Then again, that wasn't really a very wide category. She sighed, and began checking behind boxes and tarps, and antique chairs shadowed by gabardines for any trace of anything that would reveal some kind of demon activity.

Chrono went to the back right corner and shifted a couple of crates out of the way. He found something very interesting. "Uh, guys, you, uh, might wanna take a look at this." Rosette and Azmaria, walked up behind him and was greeted by a large pewter cauldron, filled with sparkling gold dust. "Wow, it's gold," Rosette whispered marvelling, her mind going back to when she and Chrono had been on that boat a month ago. She had knocked him over the head for being dumb then, but the, when didn't she hit him for something. That was before Azmaria joined up, but things had changed a lot since then.

She lifted a handful of the dust out and let it flow back into the pot. Her mind also flowed back to a recent time, when she had found Chrono's notebook on the boat. "Hey, shame there's no rainbow here, huh?" She joked

"You want a rainbow?" An unfamiliar voice boomed menacingly, out of what was seemingly nowhere. Out of the blue, or rather the gold, a decaying clawed hand shot out from the pot and grabbed onto Rosette's wrist. "Sorry, I don't think I've got one of those." At this point every one screamed and Rosette was pulling out her gun. _This_ was what she was good at.

* * *

Yo, everybody, after about 3000000 years I've got this chapter done, but I think my writing's slipped a little, maybe it's 'cuz' I haven't ready any CC lately, but review and give me your cruel, cruel opinions. 


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